32-Bit PSoC 4 Dev Board Only $4

The PSoC 4 is a very clever little device that boasts a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 processor, Flash and SRAM, and programmable analog and digital fabric.

I just received an email from a well-known EE Times commenter, Betajet, posing an interesting problem:

Hey Max, if a major semiconductor company offered a 32-bit development board for $4.00, you'd think that was pretty big news, right? Well, by happenstance, two days ago I discovered these CY8CKIT-049 4xxx Prototyping Kits for the PSoC 4 from Cypress Semiconductor.

The PSoC 4 is a nice little chip, and previously the cheapest development board was the $25 PSoC 4 Pioneer Kit. Take a look at these $4 boards: they have a break-away USB serial interface for programming and DIP I/O holes for use in a breadboard. These have got to cost a lot more than $4.00 to make and distribute, so clearly Cypress is losing money on the board to try to get more people to check out the PSoC 4.

So here's my question: why is such an obviously nifty board getting virtually no publicity? The Cypress documentation has been around since at least February and it's well stocked at Mouser and Digi-Key.

A puzzle. Seems like a nice little board. Thought you'd be interested.

Well, I must admit to being intrigued. Betajet poses an interesting question. Why is an obviously nifty board getting virtually no publicity? Maybe it's a conspiracy. Hang on. Since I haven't reported about this before, maybe I am part of that conspiracy.

Of course, there is a simpler explanation, which is the fact that no one told me about such a board. As Betajet says, he ran across this board by accident, and he's very knowledgeable about... well, just about everything, now that I think about it.

The PSoC 4 is a very clever little device that boasts a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 processor core running at up to 48 MHz, up to 32 kB of flash and 4 kB of SRAM, programmable analog and programmable digital fabric, and CapSense Touch Sensing technology.

Off the top of my head, I don't recall seeing anything like this snap-off USB connector. My understanding is that you can program and reprogram the device using your PC; then, when you are ready to rock and roll, you can snap off the programming end and embed the business end of the stick in your product.

At only $4, these are an incredible bargain, and we all need to snap some of these up while the snapping is good.

In regards to some of the kinetis boards... mbed.org supports some of them and so you can now use mbed's system... so online compiler, libraries, etc. The result... you compile your program and save the resulting file to your PC... then drag this file over to the virtual mbed hard drive to self program...

As for some comments by others about the exceptional low cost of the PSoc board... I think it is impressive to offer a dev board for $4,but to once the price is below $20 or $15 I find it ridiculously cheap... To have a fully assembled board for less than $20 or so is utterly amazing.